Beware photos online: US family's Christmas card photo used as advertisement in Prague

An American couple was shocked to discover that their family's Christmas card photo was being used without their permission to advertise a supermarket's delivery service in Prage.

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A freind of the Smiths was driving through Prague when he spotted this picture of her family splashed across a storefront advertisement.Photo: AP

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A freind of the Smiths was driving through Prague when he spotted this picture of her family splashed across a storefront advertisement.Photo: AP

5:39PM BST 11 Jun 2009

Jeff and Danielle Smith sent a photo of themselves with their two young children to family and friends as a Christmas card, and posted the image on her blog and a few social networking websites.

Then, late last month, a friend of Mrs Smith's was driving in his neighbourhood in Prague when he spotted the Missouri family's smiling faces in the window of a local supermarket. He snapped a few pictures and sent them to a flabbergasted Mrs Smith.

"It's a life-size picture in a grocery store window in Prague - my Christmas card photo!" said Mrs Smith, 36, who lives in the St. Louis suburb of O'Fallon.

Mario Bertuccio, who owns the Grazie store in Prague, admitted that he had found the photo online. He said he thought it was computer-generated. When told it was a real photo - of a real family - he promised to remove it.

"We'll be happy to write an e-mail with our apology," said Mr Bertuccio.

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Mrs Smith has received 180,000 hits to her website since she posted the story about the well- ravelled snapshot. She said the photo wasn't used in an unseemly manner, it was just used to tell potential shoppers about the store's delivery service.

Mrs Smith said next time she posts a family photo on the internet, she will lower the resolution or add an electronic watermark to make it hard to reproduce.